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Tuesday, October 16, 2012

It’s
been a while since I saw your goggles covered eyes pan across my television
screen. It’s not something that I terribly miss, really. But, it’s been a while
since the Khalsa College staff let a Sardar walk around their campus with a
ponytail. It’s been a while since I saw a Sikh puttar not look like he had Butter Chicken leg pieces stuffed up
his biceps; and it’s really been a while since I saw people dancing to a
Punjabi song that does not feature Yo Yo Honey Singh. That’s reason to come
back.

Don’t
you think it’s about time that you came out with another video, showing these
elitist Delhi University dumbfrigs that not every dude who wears shades in the
dark is an Orkutiya? Going by your history, we know that you’ve grown up in
Kenya and have spent a significant part of your life talking about how you’re
one of the first Punjabi singers from the UK. That gives you a lot of
credibility when it comes to fashion. If the cut Surds in India needed the
official licensing from UK based desi pop stars like Taz and Jazzy B to spike
up their hair and feel cool about it, you’re someone who defined a distinctive
style for our Sikh friends who chose to stick to their religious beliefs and
not sacrifice their hair at the risk of looking like a “murga” as the elders in my family put it. What made you score
additional points is that you really didn’t feel like giving a shit to coming
up with a name that would help you sell your albums based on how many times you
place the letter “Z” in your name. *appreciative nod* That’s reason to come
back.

I’m
not bored of dance steps that are suggestive of counting stars in the memory of
a lover. Neither do I mind singing along to lyrics that talk of boys driving
cars while girls walk down the road. Ah, that is another fantasy, considering
I’m driven around to places by my lady friends due to my lack of driving
practice. I still dance just as much to your songs as I did at my uncle’s
wedding way back when I was eight. The way I move my body hasn’t improved much
since then, but I love how you make me not look like a bad dancer by making
everyone else at the party just point up to the sky and jump to “ishq tera tadpaave”. That’s reason to
come back.

As I
read through your wiki page, I realize that you’re not too far away from my
dad’s age. You probably have kids by now. I said probably ‘cuz you know, it
must’ve been a hard task trying to figure out where you’re aiming at in the
dark with those shades on. My sympathies. But it’s hard for me to imagine you
looking way past forty. Look at Mayur and Rocky from Highway on my plate, for
example. How different can a pony and a pair of glasses (tinted in your case)
make you look if you’ve been sporting them since your first appearance on TV
about two decades back? I will totally refuse to believe someone who tells me
that you’ve sprouted some hair around your cheek bones or have got bi-focal
lenses for the gogs. You’re like a male equivalent of Rekha in my head, with
equally beautiful hair, and no, you’re not allowed to age. Give me a chance to
show a latest video of you to my dad and make him realize that he needs to do
something to stay fit. That’s reason to come back.

Every
Punjabi song that I listen to these days talks of girls wearing Prada or Gucci
and drinking neat shots of vodka without even a drop of Limca. What follows are
orgasmic sounds calling out to the Almighty. My dadi, even though being a Punjabi, gets lost in the sound of the
beats and asks me to slowly recite the lyrics for her. It’s been a while since
I’ve spoken out the words of a song in front of her. It’s really been a while.
Come, be a good boy, and let the old lady enjoy some music that reminds her of
days when her husband would count stars and cry for not having met her for a
day. You’ll get aashirwad, you know.
That’s reason to come back.

I
don’t miss your music too much. I don’t ‘cuz I’m still not over it. It still
makes me lip sync along in the Delhi Metro and look like a retard while on my
way to the office every morning. You’re still there on my playlist, while
others stick around for just a month or two. But I wouldn’t mind you flooding
my playlist with beats that make me break my silence through plugged in ear
phones and shout “Bruaah!” at the
fellow passengers every once in a while. That’ll probably be a little
embarrassing. But, that’s reason enough to come back.

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Cars
enter the gates of Gurgaon city guarded by mechanical toll booths that silently
mimic a “Hail Mogambo” and raise their arms with a beep to welcome all those
who have chosen, or rather been chosen to serve the half-foreign ruler of the
town. The skyline, marked by western design inspired buildings, brings the
uncanny blond color to the king’s mane. The king taps his fingers on an
upturned bowl of light and talks in a tone that is Indian enough to recognize itself
with Amrish Puri. His appearance shows that he is evidently not of an Indian
origin. The golden in his hair and the gold on his coat conceal his real
identity from the city that marks his kingdom. But, his voice is a strong
mixture of Indian dialects, and why shouldn’t it be? An ethnic mix of Indians is
what breathes life into this city that wears a façade of greenhouses branded by
multi-national corporations.

We
all serve the king, and express joy on having made it to his army that moves on
a conveyor from Sikanderpur to HUDA City Center. The cogs slide along metal
tracks and push members of the infantry at their allocated work areas, to
either screw pieces together or hold things in place by being pieces themselves.
The flash of a Metro card beeps in tune with a hundred other beeps that mark
entry time at an adjoining building. Business cards get exchanged in thousands,
giving clear tool usage instructions that we also wear as thin pieces of
plastic hanging by our necks.

It’s
not just the mechanical sounds that drive us to this kingdom. The colorful
attire of our lead actress, who stands tall, wearing shreds of white, red, pink
and blue, is another feature that draws us to the sub-urb, where she lives up
to her “hawa-hawaii” image by anglicizing
her name to Air-tel. With dreams to woo her and move from one step on the
ladder to another, we march to the kingdom; the kingdom of dreams.

A
part of the machinery, we all, are little heroes marching to save the world; a
world that comprises three inhabitants on the 4th floor of an
apartment building post 9 p.m. We are saviors of our little lives that are
cloned by the king in his massive factories made of glass. We are heroes; the
Mr. India’s who are bound by the ticking of the three needles on our wrist
bands, which will one day make us invisible. The needles tick through the day,
working their magic spells to grant us the power of invisibility, and in a
matter of weeks, we stand in the middle of a crowd, crying over our
invisibility.

Invisibility,
we thought, was synonymous with invincibility, but it didn’t turn out the way expected.
Sifting through pieces of glass, we then work towards finding the one that
would turn us into visible beings; finding ways to stand out in the crowd, even
if through a glass stained with red. It’s funny; life in the city of Gurgaon. The
power of the wrist band ticks over the pulse of our heroes, but Mogambo still
expresses his happiness unperturbed, "Mogambo khush hua!"